Book Cover Design

Kai and Sunny, the impressive design duo whose work recently appeared on the cover of the Booker Prize shortlisted , reveal the Illustrator techniques they used to create this stylish and eye-catching image.

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The main aim of this tutorial is to refresh some of your most elementary Illustrator techniques by recreating the book cover we produced for Cloud Atlas. This back-to-basics approach will require you to learn how best to scan your images into Photoshop and place your scanned sketches into Illustrator so that you can clean up your scribbled sketches and transform them into perfect vector drawings.

You'll also be encouraged to grapple with a range of other Illustrator drawing tools to create original and eye-catching elements to add to your final illustration. Having refreshed your Pen techniques, we'll take you through the delights of drawing with the aid of the helpful Snap-to- Grid tool, programming the grid to your desired settings, before running you through simple but striking ways to draw effective vector-based sun and grass effects with the program's Ellipse tool.

You'll separate your vector drawings across different layers, selecting and focusing on individual elements so they can be rearranged and coloured with ease. Once layered, the illustration will really start to take shape - after all, it's essential that book covers grab your attention right away.

We've simplified the job by giving you advice on how to select Pantone colours best suited to your illustration, control your colours in Illustrator, select a fill and outline colour for your vector drawings, discover the best effects using two or more colours with the Gradient tool, and how to combine tones to create astonishing moods throughout your images. So let's get started€¦